Terrorist Scare A Hoax?
Old Enemy: In 1948, Thomas Dewey lost his presidential bid to Harry Truman in large part because Dewey insisted on taking the high road in the campaign. Although his advisors urged him to hammer Truman with charges of Communism run rampant in the Federal government, Dewey refused on principle to attack a sitting U.S. president. After all, Truman had re instituted the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAAC); how could he be accused of being soft on Communism?
After Dewey lost to the underdog, though, things changed. Top Republicans, out of power since 1932 began to think that they would never overcome the specter of the dead FDR. It would be hardball from here on out. Witch hunts became common practice in the years leading up to the next election, most notably in Hollywood, and in 1950 Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy accused 205 governmental employees of being Communists, although he did not name these people. Few, if any, of these accusations were ever proved, but many lives were destroyed just by the accusation alone.
In the 1952 Presidential election, the default Democratic candidate was Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, selected after President Truman declined to seek another term. He was defeated in a landslide by war hero Dwight Eisenhower, one of whose major planks was rooting out Communism. The Republicans had used–and increased–American fear of the Reds to take back political power.
New Enemy: In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush, son of the previous Republican to hold the post, squeaked out a disputed victory over Senator Al Gore of Tennessee in a battle of unappetizing choices. For nine months Bush meandered through his presidency; then came 9/11, and he and his associates–the so-called Neocons–saw an opportunity to institute a secret plan. This plan, authored in 1997 by members of Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a conservative think-tank, advocates an enormous buildup of the American military, in conjunction with economic control of the world’s markets, backed up by menacing unilateral threat and action. The supposed outcome of all of this is U.S. global dominance in which dissenters from around the globe are either persuaded to allow America to control their ultimate destinies, or else eradicated.
This plan, co-authored by (among others) Jeb Bush, Lewis Libby, Richard Pearle, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney, would eventually run into trouble. The American people couldn’t be persuaded to back an elitist proposal that would be ultimately detrimental to them without having a tangible enemy to defeat. The September 11, 2001 attacks provided the trigger–and the needed evil opponent.
After 9/11, Afghanistan was invaded, with great public support, in order to seek out and capture the architect of those attacks, Osama bin Laden. Soon following, President Bush declared that there was an “axis of evil” that had to be stamped out in order to end global terrorism; Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. In 2003, America invaded Iraq, and the War on Terrorism was begun. Since that time, “terrorism” has increased dramatically–according to governmental and media accounts–as have U.S. threats of interventionism.
Conclusion: In retrospect, it has been proven that the “Red Scare” was more political power-seeking than anything else. Although the Cold War was real enough, the fear-mongering on both sides allowed it to drag on for a much longer time than it should have, and destroyed many lives and careers here at home for purely political reasons.
How will history judge the “Terrorist Scare?” I suspect, given the benefit of hindsight, that it will be assessed in somewhat the same way: as politicians, wealthy economists, and bored military commanders making a push for complete global dominance in their respective areas, while the rights of the common people are ignored. Even as they are convinced out of fear that all of this is being done for their own good.
There are 6 Comments to "Terrorist Scare A Hoax?"
Hi, there is great site! Thanks a lot for you job.
Thanks, Nick; lots of hard work & lots of help.
And we will need both in order to outlast the Iraq War–which politicians view as continuing in perpetuity.
Help yourself.
Thanks, Britney–although I thought I rambled a bit, The point was probably made.
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